mechanical larynx

Information about mechanical larynx

A mechanical larynx is a medical device used to produce clearer speech by those who have lost their original voicebox, usually due to cancer of the larynx. It is also referred to as a 'throat back'. The most common device is the electrolarynx which is handheld, battery operated and placed under the mandible producing vibration to allow speech. Along with developing esophageal voice or undergoing a surgical procedure, the mechanical larynx serves as a mode of speech recovery for postlaryngectomy patients.

Initially, the pneumatic mechanical larynx was developed in the 1920s by Western Electric, which did not run on electricity, and was flawed in that it produced a weak voice. Electric devices, namely the electrolarynx, were introduced in the 1940s, at a time when esophageal voice was being promoted as the best course in speech recovery; however, since that technique is difficult to master, the electrolarynx became quite popular. Since then, many medical procedures, such as the tracheoesophageal puncture, were created to enable speech without continued dependence on a handheld device.

The mechanical larynx is sometimes mistaken with the ring modulator, speech synthesizer, sonovox, or the vocoder. Although all four devices can make similar sounding artificial voices, they are all completely different.

Another type of mechanical larynx is called an electropharynx.
Speech communication refers to the processes associated with the production and perception of sounds used in spoken language. A number of academic disciplines study speech and speech sounds, including acoustics, psychology, speech pathology, linguistics, and computer science.
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The larynx (plural larynges), colloquially known as the voicebox, is an organ in the neck of mammals involved in protection of the trachea and sound production.
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Laryngeal cancer
Classification & external resources

ICD-10 C32
ICD-9 161

Laryngeal cancer may also be called cancer of the larynx or laryngeal carcinoma.
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mandible (from Latin mandibūla, "jawbone") or inferior maxillary bone is, together with the maxilla, the largest and strongest bone of the face . It forms the lower jaw and holds the lower teeth in place.
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Esophageal speech (or voice) is an alternate method for speech production without the oscillation in the vocal folds. The sound is produced by releasing gases from or through the esophagus.
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Intervention:


ICD-10 code:
ICD-9 code: 30.2

Other codes: Laryngectomy is the surgical removal of the larynx and separation of the airway from the mouth, nose, and esophagus.
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Pneumatics is the use of pressurized air to effect mechanical motion. Pneumatics is employed in a variety of settings. In dentistry applications, pneumatic drills are lighter, faster, and simpler than an electric drill of the same power rating (because the prime mover, the compressor, is
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Centuries: 19th century - 20th century - 21st century

1890s 1900s 1910s - 1920s - 1930s 1940s 1950s
1920 1921 1922 1923 1924
1925 1926 1927 1928 1929

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Western Electric (sometimes abbreviated WE and WECo) was an American electrical engineering company, the manufacturing arm of AT&T from 1881 to 1995. It was the scene of a number of technological innovations and also some seminal developments in industrial management.
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Electricity (from New Latin ēlectricus, "amberlike") is a general term for a variety of phenomena resulting from the presence and flow of electric charge. This includes many well-known physical phenomena such as lightning, electromagnetic fields and electric currents,
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Centuries: 19th century - 20th century - 21st century

1910s 1920s 1930s - 1940s - 1950s 1960s 1970s
1940 1941 1942 1943 1944
1945 1946 1947 1948 1949

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- The 1940s decade ran from 1940 to 1949.
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Ring modulation is an effect in electronics, related to amplitude modulation or frequency mixing, performed by multiplying two audio signals, where one is typically a sine-wave or another simple waveform.
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Speech synthesis is the artificial production of human speech. A computer system used for this purpose is called a speech synthesizer, and can be implemented in software or hardware.
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A talk box is a musical sound effects device that allows a musician to modify the sound of a musical instrument by changing the shape of the mouth.

The effect can be used to shape the frequency content of the sound and to apply speech sounds (such as singing) onto a musical
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A vocoder or voder (a portmanteau of voice and encoder) is a speech analyzer and synthesizer. It was originally developed as a speech coder for telecommunications applications in the 1930s, the idea being to code speech for transmission.
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